Green gyan

A quiet revolution is taking place in Phaltan, a small taluka, 100 km south-east of Pune. Leading the charge is environmentalist, social activist and spiritualist Anil K Rajvanshi.

A pioneer of the reverse flow from the US back to India, in early 80s, he gave up a well-paid professorship at the Institute of Solar Energy, Florida, and chose to settle in Phaltan to pursue a dream: to change the landscape of the rural poor. Thirty years on, the dream is becoming real. His dream child, the NARI Centre for Sustainable Development (NCSD), an NGO for sensitising corporations, R&D experts and leaders of civil society to the problems of rural India, was inaugurated in Phaltan on April 12, 2011. “With their resources, reach and technological expertise, big businesses can help improve rural life. The NARI Centre, a model of sustainable development, is the product of this belief,” says Rajvanshi. The focus is on innovation, particularly technological innovation that is directed to rural needs. For example, the centre developed indigenous technology for fermentation of sweet sorghum juice, solar distillation of ethanol and finally for its use as a cooking and lighting fuel in new and improved stoves and lanterns.